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That’s how Mayor Rob Ford seems to have started his much heralded attempt to tame the city’s behemoth of a budget.

As citizens tuned in to hear how the mayor intends to reduce the size and scope of government — his winning mantra in last fall’s municipal election — Ford was absent from the parade, sending his minions to a city hall news conference.

As on many other files, the civic leader was missing in action. So, too, was the anticipated list of huge savings to be found in bloated departments. And the hit list of waste and gravy.

It turns out that if Ford is going to find “savings” from the city’s water, garbage and transportation departments he will have to convince city council to keep the blue box out of apartments and condos, reduce snow clearing, cut the grass and sweep the streets less often, and end fluoridation of Toronto’s drinking water — all politically explosive issues.

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For that — and a list of nickel-and-dime, nip-and-tuck manoeuvres — Toronto could potentially, possibly, save up to $10 million to $15 million in departments that spend $1 billion, one-third of which comes from taxes.

City councillors didn’t need to pay a consultant $350,000 to tell them where to find those “savings.” Council considers them every year — and often recoils from implementing them.

The mayor has fed the general expectation that the consultants from KPMG would use their fresh eyes to uncover bushels of low-hanging fruit that nobody had identified before — the “gravy.”

They haven’t.

And if this trend continues through reports on the other cluster of services — eight in all, continuing with economic development Tuesday — then the mayor has disappointed his followers who are bullish on a brutish wielding of the axe.

The consultants begin their report on the public works and infrastructure department with this: “The vast majority, 96 per cent . . . are core municipal services.”

Economic development reports are out Tuesday, and again, about 96 per cent is considered core, essential, mandatory. Do away with core services and you close down the city, in effect. Other departments will reflect a similar theme. The mayor and politicians won’t be able to run roughshod through departments, cutting indiscriminately. Citizens will notice the damage because there isn’t so much waste that Ford can save a couple billion dollars without cutting service.

That was the campaign and post-campaign rhetoric. The claim is exposed as a canard, a massive con job.

Still, Ford’s opponents may want to hold the celebration.

While the consultants found little, if anything, new — pending future reports — even the short list of tiny adjustments is often in areas that citizens value. They may not be core services; they may not be available in other jurisdictions; they may be costlier than the standard service, but citizens treasure them. And what is considered a frill by one citizen is often essential to another.

Waste diversion costs three times what it does to simply dump the trash in a landfill site. So the bean counters look at this and suggest council may want to stop being green. Single-family homes divert 60 per cent of their waste, while highrise dwellers divert only 18 per cent. Cut the plans to extend the blue box program to more condos and apartments and savings accrue, they argue.

Do you see city council agreeing to that?

KPMG maintains it is not recommending any of the “inventory of opportunities” identified in the report. That’s for council to decide in September.

Getting there will be ugly, not the cakewalk the mayor promised.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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